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Comment by fragbait65 | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, why bother?

The earth isn't dying, the earth will be fine, it will recover over time, humanity on the other hand needs to be reduced.

If it isn't climate change, an epidemic or something else, then it will be war over resources some time in the future.

On the other hand, climate change will probably lead to war anyway, since resources like water and places to live will decrease from that, so war is probably in the future anyway, since world population continue to rise, especially since the Chinese seem to allow 3 children moving forward.

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> humanity on the other hand needs to be reduced

The point of view expressed here somewhat ironically show a severe lack of humanity. If anything it seems more humanity is needed here.

It’s not uncommon to hear people talk about various types of population control/reduction while being seemingly oblivious to just how tragic and psychopathic the point of view is.

If you find yourself agreeing with, say, Thanos, and also think it’d be great to see half the world’s population reduced by half, I think that’s a pretty strong signal that you need to really think about what you’re saying and if something can be done to increase your ability to empathize with people in need.

Another approach, that doesn’t involve letting people die, directly or indirectly, through our (lack of) action, would be to address issues that cause long term high population growth, in addition to for instance developing technologies and making cultural/lifestyle changes to accommodate more people on our planet to the extent that’s needed.

Population reduction advocates never seem to argue that themselves committing suicide would be the moral choice, which reveals they are valuing the preservation of their own current lifestyle over the lives of the "others".

In practice, it seems like the majority of people who call for population reduction are white/western supremacists who lack empathy for humans born with less privilege.

Birth control should be freely available to every human on the planet. Beyond that, I don't think there is any moral policy available to reduce population.

You are probably correct.

I didn't really mean to suggest population control, even though I wrote just that. The problem as I see it is that everybody tries to approach the problem as if it will be solvable by technology.

The only way I see that we can solve a climate crisis or the survival of humanity long term is to actually work together. Which I'm pretty certain will never happen, since there will always be greedy and selfish people.

I agree. I believe reducing wealth inequality is the best path towards stable global population. Nearly half of the countries in the world are already below the population replacement rate - and it seems birth rates are inversely correlated with wealth to some extent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...

If we can end war and poverty (and that's a pretty big 'if'), I think global population would stabilize and this would be a non-issue.

I'd say wealth and education, but in most counties wealth and education go hand in hand, so I agree with what you say.

That's not my point.

My point is that there's no need for population control. The problem will eventually solve itself.

I think humanity is doomed as long as there are egotistical and greedy people and there's nothing you or I can do as individuals.

The problem is lack of resources, so I don't think the problem is solvable with with technology.

And just for reference, I actually am very successful in a field where you do have to empathize with people to be successful. That's actually what makes me bitter, I empathize and all I see is greed and selfishness. It's human nature, and that can't be solved with technology or science.

The Chinese have not been successful in getting people to have more children. Recent news is that they may be covering up for the early stages of population decline. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-report-first-popul...

Beyond that, the consensus is that population will naturally plateau in the near future, no need for killing people you don’t like.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/worlds-popu...

This is high school level knowledge. Where does this meme that human population is growing out of control come from? I keep seeing it repeated here and it is puzzling.

I agree with what you say. I didn't mean to say that the the population growing is the actual problem. I mean to say that lack of resources is the problem. (Too lazy to create a link) https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/state...

We would still consume too much resources even with population decline.

Sure, lets say we fix climate change. I think the only viable way to actually do that is for everybody agree to live as people did a few hundred years ago.

People seems to believe that we can solve climate change with technology. I think that's a pipe dream.

I also think that it's a pipe dream thinking that the world will band together and "solve" the climate crisis together. I think Covid-19 has showed us that humanity does not band together in a crisis, each country and even each individual will use the crisis to make moves to benefit them.

And it doesn't matter what you do as a individual, most resources are consumed by large corporations anyway.

Huh? Communist China was (and still is) aiming to have LESS children. Before 2015 they didn't allow more than 1 (one!) child per family. Currently they are allowing 2 (two) children which is below sustainability threshold of 2.4

Current news suggest that they are upping the threshold to 3 children trying to stimulate population growth due to needing to increase their available work force in the future.

These measures are not as extreme as the last time they stimulated their population growth, which lead to the one child policy. We'll see if they feel that this stimulation is enough or if they will try to increase the incentive even more if they don't feel as if it is enough.

You shouldn’t sleep on China, they move and change quickly.

https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/china-to-all...

> Before 2015 they didn't allow more than 1 (one!) child per family.

Yes, they did. The strict one-child policy (which still had some exceptions) lasted for about the first half of the 1980s.

I think you are half right. The earth isn't dying, it will be fine.

We should have a human focus, because it's a global common ground.

We should bother because this is all about what kind of life we will have in the future.

Some will die, some will always survive. That doesn't really change. But if we can stop climate change in a good way it can give us a better quality of life. Less conflict, less resource scarcity. That's why it's worth bothering, to build prosperity, invest in the future.

I agree with everything you say.

It's actually not a science/technology problem. The problem is human nature, and that's not solvable with technology. If it was, then everything would be rather simple...

I think it's a problem of politics, just like you say, it's not about technology, of course. But it's an issue at the cross section of science and politics.

Maybe you can also see why the young climate activists use banners with "system change, not climate change": They don't believe, either, that our current sociologial systems are capable of solving this, the "system" needs to change.

Yes, I agree. The question is what the system need to change into?

I'm not an expert, but it seems that all known political and/or economic systems fail in the face of greed and selfishness. Or maybe greed is the effect of a failed political system, either or all known systems are a failure from my perspective.

I think capitalism balanced by laws has worked best so far, but you seem to need so many laws that it creates loopholes. I.e blacklists doesn't work that well, especially not a complex blacklist. (And I'd even suggest that the blacklist has been trojaned by lobbyists and other agendas.)

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